Despite publishing the tuition hike as a prank video, Khosla did not go viral, nor increase his subscriber count.
Photo by Jack Yang
UCSD has recently backtracked on surreptitiously raising yearly tuition by $20,000 after an overwhelmingly negative reaction from students, claiming that the decision was “just a prank, bro.”
On October 16, students on monthly payment plans noticed an extra $1,000 charge on their accounts. Upon investigating the unexpected expenditure, they found that a new “empire-building tax” bracket had been inserted into the UCSD tuition allocation breakdown. Students quickly spread the news amongst themselves on student webpages and social media, triggering a mass uproar over the unannounced price bump. The hashtag #KhoslaisaGoldDigger came seventh in Twitter’s trending list within 24 hours of the discovery.
UCSD released an official statement early October 18, stating that “the so-called ‘empire-building tax’ addition to students’ tuition is nothing more than a spooky-season prank. In celebration of the month of tricks and treats, the administration felt that this well-spirited jest would lighten the mood of students as they approach their midterms. We at UCSD know that students are always joking about our usage of tuition money to build more colleges, so we decided to join in the fun!”
Many students expressed less enthusiasm for the administration’s festive joke. “My dad had a heart attack when I frantically called home to tell my parents about this,” said third-year Melissa LeFrangue. “No, literally. He’s in critical condition. UCSHIP doesn’t cover this, and that’s pretending I was able to afford it in the first place.”
Second-year Jim Haarden commented, “I bet Boomers think this is funny, and yet they still wonder why us millennials can’t afford a place to live.” 62-year-old Murphy Jameson, a Biology Ph.D. professor at UCSD, said, “That’ll teach those spoiled kids, huh! Maybe if they spent less money on tattoos and avocado toast they could afford it! Why, back in my college years here I made up enough dough at my summertime job to pay for the whole year! It’s only $630 a year, it’s not that hard. Especially with them damn minimum wage laws them lazy kids got for themselves!” When told that the annual tuition for California residents was now $50,000 on average and $80,000 for out-of-state students, Jameson walked away, saying that he was “going to be late for lecture. The kids get really mean on Piazza when I’m late.”
When approached for comment, Chancellor Khosla did not match his administration’s official statement. “Yeah, I authorized the raise. What we need is more colleges, because more colleges means more students, and more money. See here, the plan is to use the extra $800 mil’ a year to build a second campus above now-campus because La Jolla city council are a bunch of greedy hoarders who won’t give me land grants to the Torrey Pines State Reserve. It’ll be like Coruscant up in this bitch, you feel me? We’ll move the seven colleges we got up there, and make the current buildings below eighth through fourteenth, call them ‘the Underworlders.’ By then, we’ll be charging $500 grand a year for a mini-quintuple where you never see the light of day, literally.”
The $20,000 halloween prank surcharge has yet to be removed from UCSD’s annual budget.
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